During my childhood, my parents were very involved with the church. I went to church every Sunday and helped clean the church during the week. I went to Sunday school, and this is where the trouble began as far as my faith is concerned.

My father loved to read and he often bought National Geographic magazines and I would read them after he was finished. These magazines clashed with a lot of what my Sunday school teachers were feeding me.

I remember them telling me that believing in Jesus was the most important factor when it came to being saved. The problem for me was geography and time periods – how could the Native Americans know of Jesus, for example, when Europeans hadn’t yet discovered North America? How could isolated tribes, which I’d read about in…

This is a post by a religious blogger who approached me about answering a few questions from my own atheist perspective. They were:

What is the meaning of life? Is there an afterlife? If so, how do you get there?

The last question I answered with a Carl Sagan quote. I’m going to disable comments here but I hope you’ll consider stopping by their blog and commenting on the post or adding your own perspective on those questions.

I am branching out the scope of my theological material. As a devout Christian, it can be limited but I will remain objective for this post when it comes to who is right or wrong. I want my viewers to get a glimpse of the basicsimilarities and critical differences of people that are affiliated with a wide range of religions or simply do not affiliate. This is simply a snapshot that encompasses the views of 6 billion people. For each religion, I surveyed a person affiliated with that religion. I asked three questions in this order: What is the meaning of life? Is there an afterlife? If so, how do you get there? Here we go ladies and gentlemen:

Christian

As Christians we are meant to serve and glorify God. We are to love God and other people

A few days ago I blogged about the demise of Fidel Castro and how my Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, praised him in a speech. Here’s a well balanced and interesting post I found that I think you might enjoy.

It’s time to speak ill of the dead. It’s been time for nearly a century. Since 1919, the left in both the U.S. and Europe has had a dictator-worship problem. First it was Lenin; then it was (yes) Stalin; then Mao; most recently the dictator of choice has been Fidel Castro.

To illustrate the depth and nature of this problem, let me recount an incident from Cuba in the 1960s. In the 1970s, a maoist friend told me about his experiences there as part of a Venceremos Brigade a decade earlier. (Venceremos Brigades were bands of American leftists who traveled to Cuba to work in the cane fields in support of “the revolution.”) At one point, Fidel himself showed up where they were working in the fields. My friend told me that the reaction of his fellow brigadistas was like that of 14-year-olds at a Beatles concert.

There was a time, not long ago, when rousing anthems on feminism engaged me and enraged me about the patriarchal society we live in. Now I’ve delved a little deeper into radical feminism, I’m attuned to the subtext and feel dismay at the illogical messages rooted in alienation and inequality.

Let’s take extracts from a quote recently lauded by The Arbourist (full quote here).

1. Sexualised violence

We cannot both celebrate sexualised violence and have freedom from sexualised violence.

I agree. But for many radical feminists in these circles, any penetrative heterosexual sex is sexual violence, often equated with rape. Not joking.

Why is this bad for women? Because common garden heterosexual sexual intercourse is not evil. Moreover, most women are not sexually assaulted in their lifetime and most men are not sexual abusers. Yes, the numbers are disturbingly high and society needs to change, but preaching a…